Conventional substrate transfer equipment has been known, in which a local exhaust duct formed along the length direction of a ball screw is arranged close to the ball screw between an arm for transferring a wafer while holding the wafer and the ball screw such that a gas suction port for sucking particles faces a side of the ball screw, so as to suppress contamination of a substrate by the particles generated from grease of the ball screw which moves up and down a holding part when the substrate held by the arm is transferred to the holding part. Further, a structure or the like has been also known, in which an elevating mechanism part such as a boat elevator or an elevator for moving a wafer is covered by a flow rectifying plate having a plurality of the holes formed therethrough, and in which circulation flow is formed by sucking a N2 gas supplied from a filter unit in horizontal laminar flow through holes of the flow rectifying plate, and sucking and introducing the same to a return route which connects a rear surface of the flow rectifying plate and the filter.
However, in the substrate transfer equipment, the local exhaust duct needs an extra space and has to be installed in a load area. This poses a problem in that the equipment has a complex configuration.
Besides, in the structure described above, there has been a problem that, if a wafer transfer for moving the wafer is operated to move up and down at a high speed, particles easily enter into a rear area in a movement direction.